Friday, June 24, 2016

Earlier this month, Lin-Manuel Miranda announced that he is
leaving Hamilton, the Broadway hip-hop
musical he wrote and in which he stars.
And when the Tony Award-winner departs after July 9, he’ll be accompanied out the door by another Tony-winner,
Leslie Odom Jr., who plays co-star Aaron Burr, and a third mainstay of the
cast, Phillipa Soo, who plays Eliza Hamilton.
That means the hottest ticket on Broadway, the winner of 11 Tony awards,
called “the great work of art, so far, of the twenty-first century” will lose
its three major leads.

So, if you happen to have tickets for Hamilton on July 10, will you really still get to see Hamilton?

I’m reminded of an old thought experiment called the Ship of
Theseus.

Theseus, the founder of Athens, had an impressive ship that
won many battles. When the ship was
finally retired, the grateful citizens of Athens preserved it in their harbor. But every so often a rotten plank on the ship would need to be
replaced. The question Plutarch asked was: After replacing the first plank, was it still the Ship of Theseus? How about when half the planks were
replaced, would it still be the Ship of Theseus? And how about all the planks?